With just days to go before the Year of the Rabbit dawns, animal-welfare groups in Asia are warning of an inevitable outcome: abandoned and neglected bunnies.

Pet retailers across the region are seeing brisk demand for the furry, fast-breeding creatures ahead of the Lunar New Year, which falls on February 3 in the Chinese almanac.

“There’s no better time to help rabbits than during the Year of the Rabbit, and you can do so by refusing to support the pet trade that causes so many animals to suffer,” said activist Maggie Chen from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

As the Year of the Tiger draws to a close, Thai retailer Eakmon Prempinitpong says his rabbit sales via the Internet have roughly doubled thanks to customers buying them as presents for their sweethearts.

These creatures end up in cages on the back porch in freezing weather and extreme heat temperatures in the Texas summer. The sharp wire hurts their little feet and they never get any exercise. They’re fed a poor diet of “pellets” and their water is stale and filthy; slime grows inside the upside-down bottle or inside the little ceramic cup. If they’re “lucky”, someone will check on them a couple times a week, otherwise they get to just sit there, in the cold and dark or the heat. They can lay down or sit up, but barely, and the noise of barking dogs and lawn mowers terrify them. What kind of life is that, for ANY living creature? And then, to end up at the Humane Society, in YET ANOTHER cage, until someone, FINALLY, puts them out of their misery. What we do, to the creatures over which we have been given stewardship, is CRIMINAL. It’s just criminal.

My daughter purchased a rabbit almost two years ago. We love it but it does take a lot of care. No meowing, no barking but it eats 24/7 and makes a big mess of it’s 4′ x 4′ cage which is kept in our entry hall. Bun Bun also likes to be held a lot and taken outside to hop around the yard. If not he will jump out of his cage which is three feet tall.

A rabbit is an animal, we raised them for food when I was a child, just like we raised calves, pigs, ducks, turkeys, and geese. That is what god intended. Mistreating one of these animals other than a swift execution for food resulted in a good whipping with daddy’s belt. Life was in order.

@Liza Null – A very cogent argument…but when I was a kid, we had rabbits in the wire cages of which you speak. Not for cruelty, but because unless you want them wallering in their feces and getting it tangled up in their hair, you have to have them raised up like that. Oh, and we didn’t do it because we intended to inflict harm on them. We did it because we ate them. You see, my single mother did the best she could for her family, which included raising our own food and having our own garden because it was cheaper and more efficient–although more labor intensive. Next time you shovel a nice juicy steak, pork chop, or some other meat product into your face, why don’t you take a moment to consider how it got to your table? Guarantee you, if you raise them from babies to adulthood, you’ll be a lot less wasteful and a lot more appreciative when you eat meat. From the sounds of it…you wouldn’t be able to survive on your own if it wasn’t for the processed “wholesome” food provided to you by the supermarket and Monsanto. If you ever do have to raise animals for your own food, it’s often wise to keep them out of their own feces–which means for smaller animals–wire cages. Keep judging. It’s a very…progressive…trait.